‘Those whom the gods love die young’
MENANDER

      Fate gave birth, at the same moment,
to the brothers, Love and Death.
The world owns to none
so fine, nor do the stars.
From the former, the Good is born,
and the greatest pleasure,
to be found in the ocean of being:
the latter annuls our greatest
pain, and all our greatest evil.
Often the boy, Love,
joys in keeping company,
with a beautiful girl,
sweet to see, not
as cowardly people paint her:
and flying together through human life
they are the wise heart’s greatest solace.
No heart was ever wiser
than when pierced by love, nor firmer
in scorning wretched life,
nor so ready to face danger
for any lord but this one:
Love, where you give your help,
courage is born, is roused:
then the human race is wise
in what it does, not as so often,
only wise in thought.

      When a new loving
affection is born,
in the deepest heart,
we feel the languid desire to die,
simultaneously in our soul:
how, who knows? But such
is the power and true first effect of love.
Perhaps the desolation here
terrifies our sight: perhaps a mortal finds
this world uninhabitable,
without that new,
sole, infinite happiness
his thoughts create:
and by reason of that great storm
presaged in his heart, seeks quiet,
seeks to reach harbour,
driven by desire,
that roars and darkens all around.

      Then, when formidable power
wraps everything about,
and invading passion flashes in the heart,
how often you, Death,
are invoked, with intense
desire, by the troubled lover!
How often at evening, how often
when the weary body is abandoned to dawn,
he might call himself blessed
never to rise again,
or see the bitter light!
And often at the sound of the funeral bell
the dirge that takes
the dead to their eternal rest,
he envies, from his heart’s depths,
with many ardent sighs,
he who joins the lost in their ancient home.
Even the untaught man,
the farmer, ignorant
of all virtue derived from wisdom,
even a shy and timid girl,
who once felt her hair stand on end
at the name of death, dares
to fix her gaze on the tomb,
on the winding sheet, with calm constancy,
dares to meditate on
poison or the knife,
and feel, deep in her mind,
the courtesy of death.
So love leads his disciples
to death. Yet often
the internal struggle is so great
a mortal cannot endure its strength,
and either the frail body yields
to those terrible forces, and in that way
Death prevails, aided by his brother’s power:
or Love drives them towards the depths,
so the unlearned farmer,
and the tender girl,
fell themselves with violent hand
while the world,
to which heaven grants
peace and old age, mocks them.

      Sweet lords, friends
of the human race,
to whom nothing in this vast
universe compares, and whom no power
but fate can overcome,
may it grant one of you
to enter fervid, happy,
intelligent minds.
And you, lovely Death,
whom I’ve always called on, and honoured
since my early years, who alone
in the world take pity on human troubles,
if you have ever been honoured
by me, if I have tried to address
the crowd’s ingratitude
for your divine status,
don’t delay, favour this
unfamiliar prayer,
close these sad eyes of mine
to the light, now, O king of the ages.
Whenever the hour falls when you come
in answer to my prayer, you’ll find me
armed, head high,
and firm against fate:
not heaping praise on the flailing hand
stained with my innocent blood,
nor blessing you, from cowardice,
like the human race of old:
I’ll throw away every vain hope
that consoles the childish world,
every foolish comfort,
and I’ll not hope for any
other moment, but yours alone:
and only wait calmly
for that day when I lay my sleeping
head on your virgin breast.